The weary student handbook genre is in need of a belligerent mauling. This is our crack at the job. We don't want to talk down to anyone, but neither do we want to chat them up, so this is an attempt at thinking out the university from our own perspective, that of students. Here we air our dirty snapshot of the academy, at least semi-naked, just as we come across it.

This potted guide is our pot shot at undressing and dressing down this place, the university, and understanding our place within it: its problems and potential, its power-relations and its possibilities for politicisation. It is not an outpouring of theories, more stories - a collection of experiences and practical tips, observations, suggestions and clues - a thinking (and occasional fantasizing) out loud. This is our attempt to share some of the knowledge to be gleaned in the university, but a knowledge that is rarely measured on any certificate come graduation day.

Written collectively by the University for Strategic Optimism, in the queasy come-down afterglow of the recent wave of student activism in the UK (but looking forward to cracking-off another round), this guide attempts to contextualise our struggle and to bring it closer to home. Just what is the university that we are fighting for anyway? And what perhaps could it be?